RTW Matters has extracted the data from the last six Australian & New Zealand Return to Work Monitor reports and analysed the information on a jurisdictional basis. As one of a series of publications covering the various jurisdictions, this review analyses Tasmania's results. Our analysis has sought to highlight trends and comparison between the jurisdictions.

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Return to work results

Return to work rates have been falling in Tasmania in the last two years, though there has been a less notable drop in durable RTW.

Tasmanian workers continue to return to work earlier than the national average.

81% of Tasmanian workers said they were ready to return to work when they did, substantially better than the national average of 73%. Of those who said they were not ready to work, there was an increase in the number of people who said the duties or hours they were offered were not appropriate. There was also an increase in the number of people who said they returned to work because of doctor, employer or insurer pressure.

The number of people who return to their normal hours, duties and pre-injury employer has declined in the last 12 months. Monitor results over the past six years suggest that each of these measures are currently trending downwards. There has also been a slight decline in the number of people who considered their RTW duties appropriate.

A higher proportion of Tasmanians were still receiving compensation payments at the time of their interview than in previous years. The number of respondents whose main source of income was workers' compensation increase over the last year, with a corresponding decrease in the number who reported their main income was sourced from social security.

Return to work influences

The proportion of injured workers in Tasmania who said a RTW plan had been developed for them has declined over the last year from a recent high in 2010-11. Of those respondents who said that a RTW plan had been developed, slightly more said that they had been involved in the plan's development, while less said they were given help to follow the plan. Tasmania has continued to score at or above the national average on these measures.

Tasmanians were most likely to say that their doctor and rehabilitation provider were the most helpful people with their return to work. There has been a continued drop in the number of people who said their work rehabilitation coordinator helped with their RTW, down from 71% in 2005-06 to 58% in 2010-11.

In the last few years, there has been a steady increase in the number of Tasmanians who identify someone who made it harder to return to work. One third of Tasmanian respondents identified someone who made RTW harder in 2010-11.

The number of people who said their employer or main supervisor made RTW harder is slightly above the national average. The number of people who said their insurer made RTW harder has doubled in the last four years, but still sits slightly below the national average.

In the last year, there has been an increase in the percentage of Tasmanian respondents who said the main reason they were not back at work was injury-related. The number of people who said they had left employment rose slightly, while there was a drop in the number who said they had been retrenched.

On nearly all measures of workplace culture, Tasmanians rate their workplaces either at or slightly below the national average.

The number of people who said it was easy to get the information needed for lodging a claim has decreased sharply in 2010-11, and now sits at the national average. Tasmanians were more likely to find the process of lodging a claim to be simple than their interstate counterparts.

Rating of customer services

Tasmania's insurers continue to perform below the national average. Insurers performed poorly on respondent ratings of how they responded to inquiries, their provision of accurate information, and their communication with injured workers.

Rehabilitation services

57% of injured workers in Tasmania participated in rehabilitation services as part of their claim. The average cost of rehabilitation was just under $2,700 per participant, about $1000 higher than the national average.

Previous claim experience

In 2010-11, 48% of Tasmanian employees reported they had had a prior claim. 42% of those who reported a prior claim reported that they had lost time because of this claim. Both of these figures are substantially above the national average.